


what it isn’t.

by LIGHTSJOON



Category: ONF (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Feels, Break Up, Established Relationship, Flash Fic, Heart-to-Heart, Hopeful Ending, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Just a lot of metaphors tbh, Nostalgia, One Shot, Post-Break Up, Short One Shot, merely Hyojin just thinking back on his time with minkyun, peep my April and a flower reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:40:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29350599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LIGHTSJOON/pseuds/LIGHTSJOON
Summary: hyojin swinging on a swing.;the residue of hyojin's love.
Relationships: Kim Hyojin/Park Minkyun | MK
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	what it isn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by what could’ve been by gone west

Hyojin rocked slowly. Back and forth. 

Back and forth. 

The old rusted swing that felt more like an extension of himself than his partner was something he could always turn to when things turned dark. When things were at their ugliest. Yet this one simple thing always remained constant in his life. 

A reminder that time too could be merciful, that not all things have an ending. They become worn, improved, and recycled, until the process starts itself anew. It’s an endless cycle of progress, a bittersweet beginning that is oh so deserved that it could bring one to tears. 

It was probably some time in early December from two years prior that Hyojin realized Minkyun’s heart was beginning to travel down unmapped roads. There was no denying that they were happy at first, their hearts still capable of fluttering in each other’s presence, but somewhere along the way it faltered. And faltered. Until there was nothing left but frowning faces. 

Grimaces and tarnished settings for clouded diamonds in their eyes. Sweet nothings and stolen touches swept under the rug, a mental note marked for someone to come back to later, but instead it piled up until the mound was impossible to ignore. And Hyojin stood at the top of that hill, overlooking what he thought was paradise, only to find a deserted overgrown love in his wake. It would take more than one person to tend to that garden, to the wilds it had become. 

It would take more than one person…more than simply  _ trying.  _

More than himself. 

Slowly, and then very rapidly, a deafening silence entranced them. Allowing them to move through each and every day until they were both far too gone in their respective endless routines. They’d forget to talk to one another; would forget the dishes beginning to stack up in the sink; forget what it meant to be themselves; forgetting what they used to supposedly have in common, what they would enjoy together on their workless weekends—

Abandoning any hope of remembering all together. 

And Hyojin realized too late that home was never a place of love, was never a place he could confide in when his heart was shattering piece by piece. Instead, home is where heartbreak resides, lingers in the spaces he’d never been able to reach, collects dust until it starts dancing across streams of sunlight that peek through the shutters. 

He found himself retreating for the darkness with no one coming to save him. The  _ only _ person he  _ thought _ could. 

The old swing squeaked and cried against his weight as he pushed himself up onto his feet. He turned to head in the direction of home, but once he caught a glimpse of the cool and calming light of the moon, he stopped on his tracks. 

Under that moonlight he wondered what it would mean to stay, what it would mean to give it his all, to try and make nothing into something until he was merely another person in the ground. He could feel it...the way the mood pleaded, begged him to embrace the time that was ticking away like sand in an hourglass. 

Perhaps a year ago he would have played onto its antics, would have embraced those signs for what they were. 

But that was a year ago. 

A different Hyojin. A different Minkyun. A different kind of love—one that was fading like a flickering lightbulb. 

It was love. Once. A time ago. A fire that had been extinguished by the inevitability of time and clashing personalities. 

Today. Here _.  _ It was a scar. 

And he was tired of mourning everything he thought he was losing. Unable to recognize that new skin was growing back after being wounded. 

So, he would embrace the darkness, take it under his wing and raise it as his own, until it was time for it to take its next adventure in life. Until it was time for  _ him _ to embrace a life of his own, solely and surely for himself. 

One day. 

His disassembled heart knew the truth, knew that he still loved someone who could never love him the same way ever again. Loved someone the same way the sunsets loved the ocean horizon; the same way the moon yearned and ached for the stars each and every night. 

And he’d force himself to live with it, to work through it until there were no longer wolves crying during a full moon. Until desire was content. 

Until April came. 

And went. 

And he’d finally say goodbye. 


End file.
